Formula E in Mexico City: Jake Dennis wins 1st free practice & shows Porsche dominance

Jake Dennis wins the first free practice session in 2026 in Mexico City with a lap time of 1:06:053 minutes, followed by Pascal Wehrlein in the Porsche in second place. The "podium" is completed by Oliver Rowland in the Nissan car.

The first free practice session in Mexico City began punctually at 4:00 pm local time. After an obligatory full-course yellow check, all the drivers immediately started chasing times and used the session intensively to familiarise themselves with the track. This season, Formula E has dispensed with the chicane after turn 8, which makes the circuit faster overall.

In the first 15 minutes, Dennis topped the timesheets with a time of 1:07.854 minutes. Jean-Eric Vergne followed closely behind, just six hundredths of a second behind.

After around 20 minutes of driving, more than half of the field was already in the pit lane. The free practice session is mainly used to adjust and test various set-ups on the cars. During this phase, Norman Nato set a new record with a lap time of 1:07.791 minutes. Strikingly, some drivers had traction problems, especially in the last corner, including Dan Ticktum and Joel Eriksson.

Dan Ticktum loves a drift 😎@Hankook_Sport #MexicoCityEPrix pic.twitter.com/bglwor2xOH

— Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) January 9, 2026

Sebastien Buemi made an exclamation mark shortly afterwards: He was the first driver to complete a lap with 350 kW and clearly beat Nato's time. With a time of 1:06.931 minutes, the Swiss took a commanding lead.

"Mr Mexico" strikes back

With ten minutes of practice time remaining, Pascal Wehrlein impressively demonstrated the potential of the Porsche racing car. In 1:06.090 minutes, he drove to the top of the standings, just 0.097 seconds ahead of his team-mate Nico Müller.

However, the answer came shortly before the end of the session: three minutes before the chequered flag, Dennis beat the best time again and set a new record of 1:06.030 minutes on the Mexican tarmac. The Porsche customer team thus impressively demonstrated the potential of the car - and sent a clear signal to the works team. Oliver Rowland moved up to third place with his final lap.

The DS Penske duo of Maximilian Günther and Taylor Barnard completed the top five. We will continue with the second free practice session at 14:30 (CET). You can follow all of tomorrow's race day sessions in our live ticker.